Buffy S5 and Angel S2 Rewatch Family & Untouched

It's cold, and gray, and gloomy outside. The Oak Tree outside my window is finally shrugging off it's leaves.

Me: the tree outside my window is holding onto its leaves and stubbornly not letting go of them.
Mother: Is it an oak?
Me: An oak?
Mother: Oaks tend to hold onto their leaves for a long time.

Re-watched Buffy S5, Episode 6 "Family" written and directed by Whedon, and Angel S2, "Untouched", written by Mere Smith and directed by Whedon - and I thought whoa, both these episodes feature characters who have abusive and controlling fathers. And some of the same dialogue? Whedon literally took dialogue from Smith and inserted it in Family. The dialogue exchange between Bethany (the victim of the week in Angel) is the same as the exchange between Tara and her father in Family.

Whedon definitely has a thing for "abusive fathers" in his stories.

Family is a better episode than I remembered - if you ignore Tara and her abusive family. ( Read more... )

I'd forgotten Untouched completely, and hadn't realized Whedon directed it, while Mere Smith wrote it. Or how various themes in it were similar to Family. Of course I hadn't watched them closely together either.
( Read more... )